15 Things

My mother threw a dinner party the other night. 

At said party, one (working) woman asked my (stay at home) mother what she does all day.

 

Mom, being the nice lady she is, fumbled through a response

without letting this lady know how rude that question is. 

Here's a list of ways she could have (and should have) responded:

- slapped her so hard her brain rattled & she would never be able to work again

- thrown a glass of wine all over her (because we've all wanted to do that)

- launched into a tirade against "feminism" and the downfall of family

- gestured imperiously a la the Dowager: 

Moral of the story: people are unfailingly rude.

Because I work Saturdays, my Mondays are sacred. 

This one was particularly beautiful:

New (completely necessary) shoes from DSW.

Grocery shopping at Trader Joe's with my Dem bag from Rome. Sigh.

The loafers made their first appearance of this fall!

I can't seem to find anything to blog about lately. 

This is what I end up typing:

 

Brain being obviously blank, here's 15 facts about yours truly:

1.  What's a nickname only your family calls you?

My full name. I've got plenty of nicknames, 

but my family calls me by my full name. 

I'm not constantly in trouble, I promise. 

2. What's a weird habit of yours?

I'm terribly OCD, 

so a lot of weird habits go along with that. 

For example:

Any sort of dial has to be on an even number or a multiple of 5. 

If there are 5 objects and I touch 2 of them, I have to touch the rest

because otherwise it's unfair. 

Today, I straightened all of the shoes at DSW. 

And I don't even work there. 

3. Do you have any weird phobias?

I have too many weird phobias. 

The dark, cracked doors, bees, needles, dementia, judgment, airborne toxins... 

At the top of the list is zombies. 

I understand that the zombie apocalypse is a metaphor for the breakdown of society. 

And I'm scared of that, too. 

But mostly I'm terrified of actual zombies. 

4. What's a songs you secretly love to blast and belt out when you're alone?

I've got tons of embarrassing music. 

I am the musical queen. 

Wicked, Les Mis, Rent...anything for a mezzosoprano. 

Also, I love me some Indigo Girls

and that's fairly embarrassing because I'm not a lesbian. 

5. What's one of your biggest pet peeves?

Grammatical mistakes. 

Stupidity, in general. 

6. What's one of your nervous habits?

Picking at my fingernails. 

It's gross, whatever. 

7. What side of the bed do you sleep on?

I sleep diagonally. 

Getting married is going to be such a hardship. 

We may just have to I-Love-Lucy it up and get separate beds. 

8. What was your first stuffed animal and what was its name?

Lamb Chop, obvi. 

9. What's the drink you always order at Starbucks?

Skinny hazelnut latte. 

10. Which way do you face in the shower?

Every way?

Someone needs to invent a human-sized lazy Susan for the shower

so I can stop spinning in place by way of my own strength. 

11. Do you have any weird body skills?

I can pop out my shoulders and hips. 

And I can make this disgusting face we call "Augustus". 

I will not be blogging that face. Ever. 

12. What's your favorite comfort food that is bad but you eat it anyway?

Doritos/Cheetos.

Not technically comfort foods, but junk food = comfort. 

13. What's a phrase or exclamation you always say?

I have no idea. 

I just spent 5 minutes thinking about it, 

but I am unaware of what comes out of my mouth on a regular basis. 

Probably because I don't have much of a filter. 

14. What do you wear when you go to sleep?

Sometimes boxers & a t-shirt. 

Sometimes yoga pants & a tank top. 

Sometimes leggings & a giant rugby shirt. 

I do a lot of laundry, sue me. 

15. What did you used to wear that you thought was cool, but now you realize isn't?

Oh, good Lord. 

Can I just say everything and be done with it?

Clogs, for one. 

But we lived in Washington State, so it was totally a thing. 

Overalls, ankle length skirts, scrunchies, tapered jeans. 

Life was one big embarrassment. 

SBQL

Rainy day blues:

Some people look really great in every day clothes, 

but slightly unnatural when all dressed up. 

Others look awesome in glamwear, but appear uncomfortable in jeans & a t-shirt. 

I am a third kind--the only look I really pull off is all burrito-ed up in my leopard print Snuggie. 

#softkittywarmkitty

Another thing:

I'm a shopaholic. 

Yesterday, I had a huge headache after work. 

Instead of going straight home, I had to stop by the nearby mall

for a little something-something. 

As I walked out with my bag full of goodies, 

I could feel my headache diminish slightly.

Uh-oh. 

Obviously, my first thought was, Will my headache go away entirely 

if I just keep shopping?

For the sake of my debit card let's hope that doesn't hold true. 

Jenna of Je na sais quoi does this SBQL: a song, a book, a quote, a look...thing. 

My mind is bloggy-blank, so here's mine.

Song//Head On by Man Man

Book//How to Win Friends & Influence People--reading this on my brother's recommendation. what's he trying to say?

Quote//I'm trying to do better about living like the Dude. I've really got to let things slide more...

Look//Obsessed with tartan. My inner Catholic school girl was never fulfilled. Plus, that B Spears video came out at a very impressionable age. 

I'm going out tonight with friends from collegio. 

Maybe that will give me more blogging material?

Favorite Things Lately

As entitled, my favorite things lately:

« Wedding Weekend in Colorado»

A friend from long, long ago in my childhood

(and more recently, from college)

got married!

We got to take a little weekend trip up to Denver/Golden, CO.

It was Augie's first plane ride and he did really well!

UD weddings are always super fun, and this one was no exception. 

The DFW contingent of the Deals (Cat, Josh, Augie, and I) arrived first

and flying makes one hungry.

On our quest to find sustenance, we discovered a kebab stand!

Like our days in Europe! It was magical!

The man questioned our knowledge of kebabs, but we set him straight. 

This isn't a very good picture, but Augie wore his skinny jeans for the first time. 

When in Denver, do as the hipsters do...

The wedding was held at the cathedral in Denver:

Terrible panorama because I have issues controlling myself when there are buttons to push:

Mini-circus tent:

The groom's brother was recently ordained, so he said the wedding Mass!

He gave the hands-down best wedding homily I've ever heard. 

No pressure for the next one...

Augie met his future wife, the adorable little girl of Cat's classmates from UD. 

Jose was clearly getting in the way of their looooove connection. 

We used to play together as small children, so Mom had to get a few photos:

This is an awkward picture because I didn't know how to pose with

a) someone I haven't seen in years, and

b) a fresh-out-of-the-oven priest. 

Mumsie + Father Henry

Congratulations, Thomas & Michelle!

«Chet Baker Sings»

I'm not at all embarrassed to say that I was reminded of this 

via my newsfeed on Facebook. 

But I will say that I listened to this album

almost obsessively senior year of high school. 

My music theory course made me fairly pretentious about my tune-age.

Go ahead, give it a listen. 

You'll feel automatically smarter. 

« The books from my AP history classes in high school»

I am having serious issues with nostalgia, or something. 

Post-grad life has me feeling stupid, mostly because I don't read

nearly as often as I used to/UD forced me to. 

I hated reading these in high school, 

but now I really appreciate them and might actually order them on Amazon. 

A little Victor Davis Hanson never hurt anyone. 

«Kate Spade Beau Bag»

Like all the good bloggers recently, 

I've fallen in love with the Kate Spade Beau bag. 

The black one is great:

But the one I reeeeeally want is this glorious creature:

Of course, it's a good $500 more expensive. 

Lindsay Bluth taste on an Ann Hog budget. 

«Nancy Pelosi Being Denied Communion»

Sucks to suck, Nance. 

My least favorite thing lately:

WTF, TEXAS?? I THOUGHT I COULD TRUST YOU.

Contented

It's been ages since I last posted. 

That last one did much better than I expected it to, 

and I must've let that go to my head. 

Plus, I ran out of things to blog about.

Apologies. 

Here's a fairly lame blog post just to get me back in the swing of things:

A lot of bloggers do that "contents of my handbag" thing. 

But their posts always leave me feeling way disorganized & crazy.

As previously discussed, I am already crazy. 

I don't need some stranger's perfectly organized purse mocking my fragile state of mind.

Maybe I'm reading too much into things, 

but I feel like the condition of one's bag is a reflection of one's life. 

Exhibit A:

1: Two Maybooks--in my defense, one is a calendar and one is a notebook, 

and I might need both at any given moment.

2: Four pens & a Sharpie--I'm a kleptomaniac. No pen is safe. 

3: Epi-pen--that's pretty normal, actually. 

4: a single bobby pin--that's gonna do a lot of good

5: both mints & gum

6: the place card from Emily's wedding...a month ago

7: no fewer than 8 chapsticks/lipsticks/lip glosses--not excessive at all

8: a little golden turtle from Greece

9: powder--to ward off the shinies 

10: wallet--meh, unnecessary because I'm a single lady who gets everything

paid for by her sugar daddies

11: the hair ties that I can never seem to find

12: two boxes of matches--in my head, I'm prepared for the 

breakdown of society/zombie apocalypse

13: an assortment of bandaids for the assortment of potential injuries I might suffer

I used this opportunity to clean out my bag. 

Maybe my life will take the hint?

But even if it doesn't, I'm fairly content with my life.

I'm young, healthy, educated, and employed with a wonderful family

and the luxury to stress over what I want to do with my life. 

Things are actually pretty good. 

There was a distinct chill in the air this morning.

Of course, it wore off by noon, but still. 

FALL

And here's the perfect cartoon that represents how I see my blog:

Remix to Recession

Now usually I don't do this, but...

I'm pretty tired of "adults" complaining about my generation, especially in reference to our work ethic/expectations. 

I saw this article, and a response immediately started forming. 

(This one's quite wordy, so feel free to bouncebouncebounce now.) <---Get the joke?! Love me some Remix. 

Say hi to Bobby.

Bobby is part of the Baby Boomer generation,

the generation born between 1943 and 1964. 

He's also part of a hippie culture that makes up a large portion of Baby Boomers. 

I have a term for hippies in the Baby Boomer age group--

I call them Persons Addicted To "Happiness" at the Expense of TheIr Country, 

or PATHETICs. 

A PATHETIC is a unique brand of hippie, one who is completely oblivious to the destruction they've cause over their lifetime. 

So Bobby's enjoying his PATHETIC life, and he's very pleased to be Bobby. Only issue is one thing:

Bobby's caused the downfall of America. 

To get to the bottom of why, we need to define what makes someone cause the downfall of America in the first place. It comes down to a simple formula:

DOWNFALL = (IRRESPONSIBILITY + LAZINESS)TIME

It's pretty straightforward--Bobby's generation took advantage

of a strong economy, got complacent + irresponsible with money, 

and just kept putting off having to face the sweet, debt-owing music.

To provide some context, let's start by bringing Bobby's parents into the discussion:

They might not say that. But they're thinking it.

Bobby's parents were born in the G.I. Generation, or the "Greatest Generation,"

who grew up during the Great Depression, 

fought in World War II, and were most definitely not PATHETIC.

Good ole Mom & Pop. 

Bobby's Depression Era parents were obsessed with economic security 

and raised Bobby to envision a successful and stable career for himself. 

He was taught that there was nothing stopping him 

from getting to the Promised Land of employment, 

but that he'd need to put in years of hard work to make it happen. 

Instead, Bobby's generation became complacent & entitled. 

After graduating college--

college that was remarkably easy to get into as well as pay for--

as an insufferable hippie, Bobby embarked on his career. 

As time rolled along, the world entered a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. 

Bobby did even better than he expected to. 

Instead of feeling grateful, this left him feeling self-satisfied and arrogant. 

Having draft-dodged Vietnam and with a head cloudy from the White Album and kush,

(my timeline is iffy--let it go)

Bobby wanted less work, longer vacations, and a good life--now. 

So Bobby loaded upon debt. (We'll come back to that later.)

And then Bobby had children. 

Terrified of getting older and having acid flashbacks with each visit to the chiropractor,  

Bobby raised his children to be special unicorn fairies with limitless possibilities. 

And he wasn't alone. 

"Baby Boomers all around the country and the world told their Gen Y kids

that they could be whatever they wanted to be.

This left [the Gen Y kids] feeling tremendously hopeful about their careers, to the point

where their parents' goals of a green lawn of secure prosperity

didn't really do it for them. A [Gen Y]-worthy lawn has flowers."

(Sidenote: Don't most parents want their kids to hope for more than what they were given?)

But Bobby got older, despite his debilitating fear of aging. 

And that debt from his youth? Yeah, it caught up to him. 

And instead of facing up to his mistakes, Bobby did what Bobby does best--

made it worse and then cried until someone else came along to fix it. 

Yes, Gen Y-ers are "wildly ambitious." 

Yes, Gen Y-ers are "delusional."

But only because the vast majority of Gen Y-ers were raised by PATHETIC Baby Boomers. 

And those of us who managed to be born of God-and-Reagan-fearing folk

still inherited an economy that had been raped & pillaged by aging hippies. 

When it comes to talking about how sucky my generation is, 

I will race anyone to the soapbox and roundhouse-to-the-face young & old alike 

for the chance at the megaphone. 

I've moved on from despair to acceptance that my generation 

will probably bring about the end of civilization. 

But it is offensive & outright wrong to lay the blame solely on us. 

Unless we are a generation of feral children, someone was there 

telling us we were special and exceptional and 

to reach-for-the-moon-because-even-if-we-miss-we'll-land-amongst-the-stars. 

And unless I'm mistaken, that's a pretty hippy, Baby Boomer, parent thing to say. 

And as special & exceptional as I am, even I couldn't make that shit up. 

I probably plagiarized a lot, and these are not all my own ideas, and none of the pictures are mine (I just altered them). So don't sue me or anything. 

ABCDE...INTJ

Alrighty. 

This was supposed to be out yesterday, but I got tired & lazy. 

That's my excuse every time, but whatever. 

Life's hard. 

I adore my new Dallas neighborhood. 

Last night, we walked to the bars. 

Unfortunately, the bars as a post-grad are even worse than they were in college. 

I've never been a going-out person; give me a house party any day. 

But last night was a rude awakening. 

School's started up again, so the place was crawling with SMU children.

I couldn't focus on anything because the conversations going on around me

were borderline retarded and fully-fledged offensive. 

Anytime you quote DMB in a list of goals, you're doing something wrong. 

Also, I always regret the amount of clothing I wear when going out. 

Like, apparently fully-dressed is not the way to go. 

Yep. 

BUT

with all of my job-hunting & questioning-my-life-decisions recently, 

I was inspired to do one of those Myers-Briggs tests. 

Now, I don't know how reliable it is because it was free, 

so I probably shouldn't base any big decisions on this. 

Can't make any promises. 

I am an INTJ--introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging. 

Clearly, my hatred of going out + my disdain for people in general 

speak of an introverted nature. 

I have no argument for that one. 

I focus on the future, probably way too much--intuitive. 

My belief that emotions are weakness demonstrates both thinking & heartlessness. 

I'm cool with that. 

Which is probably why I give this reaction a lot:

Love you, Daniel Desario. 

I like to at least have some semblance of a plan for everything.

I have to-do lists on my to-do lists. 

Judging. 

Apparently, we're super rare, comprising only 1-4% of the population. 

That's probably a good thing

since apparently we're FREAKING INSANE. 

Take those four traits individually and all is well & good. 

Combine them and you've got a serial killer. 

Analytical, anti-social, hatred of authority--psychotic.

Examples of INTJs:

Hannibal Lecter

Napoleon

The Brain (of Pinky and the...)

V (for Vendetta)

Vito Corleone 

Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)

Sure, there's some good examples of INTJs. 

But I feel like the psychos outweigh any of those good examples. 

Moral of the story: let's not be surprised if I go crazy some day. It's meant to be. 

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